This year''s BOMA Conference and Every Building Show included 40 different seminars on topics of interest to property managers, building engineers, architects, designers and vendors.

I made it to least half a dozen different presentations, all of which were interesting and professionally conducted. A wide variety of topics were covered, including managing in lean times, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, water conservation, going green, finding and keeping tenants, selling services to BOMA members and, last but not least, bed bugs.

Bed bugs are itching to get into commercial buildings. According to Ron Harrison, Ph.D, entomologist and bed bug expert with Orkin LLC, there’s a 10 percent chance that you have bed bugs in your life.

As Harrison tells it, bed bugs started by invading the hospitality industry and have moved on to new feeding grounds that include multi-family housing complexes and commercial buildings.

It seems these little hitchhiking bloodsuckers live anywhere humans hangout and are frequently found on bedding, carpeting, office chairs and other fabrics surfaces.

They can live for up to a year on one feeding and can be tough to get rid of, as they may hang out unnoticed for several months until a warm meal sits or lies down nearby.

Outbreaks can occur anywhere, with New York, Chicago and Phoenix being especially popular on the bed bug travel circuit.Bed bugs prefer the female gender, as the little critters don''t like hairy bodies. Bed bugs like cool temperatures, tend to come out at night and are known to roam up to five feet or more in search of a meal.

Reaction to bites can range from nothing to itching, swelling and red welts on the skin. They aren''t know to transfer any diseases, so they are more of nuisance than a threat to one''s health; however, bites can become infected from scratching with soiled hands and fingers, which can become a more serious health issue.